Exploring the Relationship between Dating Attitudes and Resilience: An Analysis of Survey Data from Middle School Boys

Background and Purpose: Social work research has begun to document the importance of resilience in coping with adverse experiences and life stressors. This is particularly significant for young adolescents, who represent an especially vulnerable population due to rapid developmental changes and the potential impact on long-term outcomes. In addition, young adolescence is a period characterized by a heightened interest in dating and sex in which related knowledge, behaviours, and attitudes are established. It is critical that we understand the predictors and correlates of resilience among this group to inform strengths-based intervention efforts.

Methods: The current study employed a cross-sectional survey design. Data were collected from a convenience sample of middle-school students (N=84) attending a private Catholic school for boys. The majority of participants identified as White (77.4%), Catholic/Christian (64.3%), and heterosexual (97.6%). Their mean age was 12.91 (SD, 0.59) and almost all participants were not in a dating relationship (82.1%) or sexually active (77.4%). In addition to a demographic questionnaire, participants completed measures on social support, experiences of violence victimization and perpetration, acceptance of dating violence, sexual consent attitudes, and resilience. Data collection was conducted as part of a larger evaluation study funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada on the efficacy of PEP Talk, a gender-based violence prevention program. Pre-test data from this larger study was collected and analyzed (χ² tests, independent sample t-tests, and linear regression) to determine predictors of resilience among this sample of students.

Results: A mean score of 72.40 (SD=13.34) was found for the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale. On independent samples t-tests, moderately significant differences were found for two subscales: “prescribed dating violence norms” (p<0.05) and “perceived negative sanctions for using dating violence” (p<0.10). Further, a statistically significant relationship was found between social support and resilience (p<0.05).

A linear regression analysis was performed using resilience as an outcome measure. The final model was demonstrated to be very strong, with predictor variables explaining 77.3% (R², 0.773) of the change in resilience scores. Of particular note, social support (coefficient, 1.023, SE, 0.451, p<0.001) and sexual consent subscale “awareness and discussion” (coefficient, 0.32, SE, 1.374, p<0.05) were positively predictive of an increase in resilience. In addition, Jewish (coefficient, 0.55, SE, 5.3, p<0.05), Latin American (coefficient, 0.27, SE, 10.30, p<0.05), and Arabian (coefficient, 0.534, SE, 12.78, p< 0.05) identities were predictive of increased resilience, while being white (coefficient, -0.996, SE, 10.711, p<0.05) or South Asian (coefficient, -0.527, SE, 11.929, p<0.05) were predictive of a decrease in resilience.

Conclusions and Implications: Findings point to the significance of social support, as well as selected attitudes (dating violence norms and sanctions) and knowledge (awareness and discussion of sexual consent), for scores of resilience among this sample of boys. Race/ethnicity-based identities were also found to predict resilience in both positive and negative ways; however, given the small and non-diverse sample, these results should be interpreted with caution. In addition to increasing awareness, psychoeducation on dating/sexuality-related constructs in early adolescence may be implemented by school social workers with the added benefit of increasing resilience.